There is so little information available about Burma (or Myanmar, depending on how you rock it) that after the inevitable Wikipedia entry, the CIA World Factbook is the second item that appears in Google’s search results. This anonymity is largely due to the military dictatorship that has kept the country under lock and key for much of the last 50 years. Even typhoon Nargis, which smacked into the Burmese coast in the spring of 2008 killing 130,000+ Burmese, shamefully failed to change the government’s secretive operations in spite of a large international relief effort.

Burma has not always been so mysterious. During the latter half of the 19th century and first half of the 20th, the country was annexed to the British Raj of India (mostly to arrest the expansion of the French across Indochina from Laos and Vietnam), and quickly became an integral part of the British Empire supplying a rich abundance of jewels, hardwoods and spices to global markets. Indeed, the British, favoring the temperate north of “Upper Burma” over the fetid, malarial Rangoon (now Yangon) in the south, made the previously small, provincial town of Mandalay their capital, opening up that previously undeveloped area in so doing. It was during these heady days of fortune-making, steamy nights and opium dens that the sense of exoticism and opulence surrounding the city of Mandalay developed (which the Vegas casino Mandalay Bay riffs off, despite the fact that Mandalay is more than 500 miles inland).

Indians, Chinese and Anglo-Indians, their businesses and their foods, flooded Burma under the British, as the new rulers exploited Burma’s natural wealth and pushed railroads deep into the Burmese interior. Prior to this period, native Burmese cuisine had contrasted sharply with its neighbors. It had few of the complex spices of Indian cuisine and lacked the fiery heat of Thai food or the sophisticated salty, sour, sweet characteristics of Chinese cuisines, tending to rely on more subtle flavors and simple techniques. Things changed considerably during British rule, and the Burmese adopted or adapted many of the more generic dishes these foreign groups brought with them, so that contemporary Burmese food, while still distinct, displays these recent influences.

Perhaps the most popular dish in Burma though, is a traditionally Burmese dish that has been eaten to celebrate marriage throughout the ages. Own-o Kow-swear (or Own-o Kow-sway/swea’) is a chicken and coconut milk stew flavored with turmeric, garlic and ginger and served over wheat noodles, that due to its bright yellow color is thought to bestow luck on the marrying couple. It is also supposed that the enlivening flavors of ginger and turmeric offer a little extra oomph, shall we say, to the consummation.

We first wrote about this dish back in the very early days of this blog — apparently before lighting was an issue in our photography (or retouching, for that matter) — having enjoyed it at one of the (then) only two Burmese restaurants in New York, not to mention one of the very few such eateries in America. Sadly, this restaurant, Village Mingala, closed earlier this year, leaving its sister restaurant on the Upper West Side to fly the flag for Burmese cuisine in NYC, and so to mark its passing, we decided to give home-making Own-o Kow-swear a bash.

Of course, as my opening line suggests there isn’t much available on the internet about Burmese food, so we turned instead to the only Burmese cook book readily available in English — The Flavors of Burma/Myanmar — written by Susan Chan, a Burmese-Australian woman of Chinese heritage. From her we learned that since chicken (and other proteins, except fish) have typically been (and, to an extent, still are) exorbitantly priced in Burma, this dish came to be served at weddings as a demonstration of the hosts’ generosity and largesse. We also learned, very interestingly, that these days it is also often served — to those who can afford it — as a breakfast dish because Burmese weddings are most commonly celebrated in the morning, with the celebratory meal served around brunch time.

It is hard for us to contemplate eating anything with chicken in it before noon, let alone a bowl of fragrantly-spiced stew and noodles, but, happily, it also makes an excellent lunch or dinner instead. Do not be dissuaded from giving this dish a try, especially if you’ve been nervous hitherto about making Indian or Thai food at home due to the number and/or availability of some of the ingredients. Much of what you need for Own-o Kow-swear can be found in even the most badly-stocked grocery store, and in terms of skills, if you can make a regular beef stew, you can make this blindfolded.

Since, for most of us, visiting Burma or even finding a Burmese restaurant is largely impossible, unless something miraculous happens there politically, this dish is about as close as we’re ever going to get to experiencing the unknown pleasures of that exotic and mysterious nation. The really frustrating thing is that once you’ve tried this dish you just want to taste and know more and more about Burma and its food. Here’s hoping that one day, the government’s iron grip will relax, or be cast-off entirely, and the country and its fabulous cuisine can once again by enjoyed by Englishmen (and people of all countries) like me.

The point of bringing this up, though, was not to provoke an outpouring of pity from you, as I’m sure many of you also work in dreadful places, confined all day to a cubicle, on a squeaky chair with no access to even the most inoffensive websites, but rather to explain why, when I return to my desk from the kitchen with my lunch everyday, I have to walk past everyone else.

As I stroll past these folk, happy that I shall soon be enjoying a hot, delicious meal, they often stare mournfully at me, sniffing the air like tom-cats in heat, before gazing pitifully upon the damp and insipid sandwich they just paid $8 for. Sometimes, they will inquire what it is I am carrying because it smells so good. At other times, they’ll half-stand-up to peer at my plate. I feel their envy, and yes, it feels good.

Because, apart from having had the patience and, to a small degree, the imagination and skill to make an interesting and delicious meal for myself the night before, and boxing up the left-overs to bring in, I did nothing that they could not. And it is this, I am sure , that irks them most.

This week, it was grilled coconut milk and chilli marinated shrimp (a recipe riffing off one found in Steven Raichlen’s BBQ University cookbook for Brazilian-style shrimp skewers) and roasted vegetable rice. This dish is more expensive to make than the last “At the Desk Gourmet” because of the 2lbs of shrimp, but for a total ingredient purchase price of $41.36, we fed seven adults and had enough rice leftover for two other meals. And, at a shade under $6/head, even if my colleagues weren’t eying my lunch jealously, it would still be good value to me!

Here’s how to do it:

Ingredients:
2lbs of 26-32 shrimp, shells on, but split down the back
1 can coconut milk
2 medium-sized red cayenne peppers, finely chopped
5 cloves garlic, crushed
8 tbsp fresh cilantro leaves/storks, roughly chopped
Juice of 3 limes
1/2lb long grain white rice
1 cube chicken bouillon dissolved in 1.5 pints boiled water
1 large onion, halved, grilled, then sliced
2 large bell peppers, roasted whole, then sliced
4 medium round tomatoes, roasted whole, skinned, then sliced
2 green/spring onions, finely chopped
2 tsp salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 package of wooden/bamboo skewers

Recipe:
Put shrimp, 3 cloves of crushed garlic, chopped cayenne peppers, 4 tbsp of the chopped cilantro, half the lime juice and the whole can of coconut milk in a large, non-reactive bowl to marinate for at least an hour, but no more than three hours.
In the meantime, soak your bamboo/wooden in water. I often use a vase for this.

Then, saute the remaining two cloves of garlic in a tablespoon of olive oil until tender before adding the rice. Saute rice until it begins to color, but only a little, before pouring in enough hot chicken stock to cover the rice by about an inch and half. Cover and bring to a boil. Set timer for ten minutes.

Put the tomatoes, bell peppers and halved onion on a hot grill. Keep turning tomatoes and peppers on grill until blistered all over. Onion will take longer to cook all the way through.

Place tomatoes and peppers in paper bag and let sit for 10 minutes, then remove the skins, and chop into whatever sized chunks/strips you like best.

When oven timer beeps, turn down flame under rice to low and set timer for another ten minutes.

Thread shrimp on the skewers and pre-heat grill to med-high.

When oven timer beeps again, switch off flame, but do not look at the rice. Keep covered for a further ten minutes.

Grill shrimp until deliciously pink and firm.

Stir in roasted vegetables, scallions and the remaining cilantro into the rice, and squeeze in the rest of the lime juice.

If you have it, and if not, you should seek it out, Jamaican Choice Papaya Hot Sauce is the perfect condiment for this dish. Otherwise, any fruit-based spicy salsa or sauce would work well. Enjoy!